Field Rations

 

 I don't know when or where this photo was taken, but if I were to guess, I would say World War 1.  The helmets don't look like the flat type worn by the U.S. or British armies.  I think, though I'm not sure, these are French troops.  

Vietnam, A Land of Conflict 4

I've got to wonder, who would receive this small folder of images.  It would almost be cruel to send pictures of combat to a relative, especially a mother.  Maybe high school buddies.  Kind of a "Look what I'm doing!" thing.  Anyway this is the last post from the folder.  Remember, click on either Vietnam or Vietnam War in labels to see Vietnam, Pearl of the Orient.  Too,for those interested,  I've got a couple of photos from the war on my Fair Use blog.

Vietnam, A Land of Conflict 3

Gotta wonder how that last picture made it into a war photo collection.

Vietnam, A Land of Conflict 2

I bought two of these postcard folders about Vietnam, and posted the other one way back in November of 2013.  Hey, what can I day, I just plain forgot to follow up sooner than this.  Click either Vietnam or Vietnam War in labels to see it.  And that line in the third image is a crease in the folder.

Vietnam, A Land of Conflict 1

I missed an important date last week.  April 30 was the fiftieth anniversary of the fall of Saigon, the end (sort of) of the Vietnam War.  We Americans often look at the world through the lens of 1945.  Wars end when the enemy surrenders, signs a piece of paper, and submits to an occupation.  The reality is, most wars end when one or both sides decide it's just not worth it anymore.  We decided it wasn't worth it anymore a lot earlier than 1975.  It took a few years to negotiate a peace agreement because national honor kept two Presidents form just walking away.  The Paris Peace Accords that ended American combat operations were actually announced on January 23, 1973, a date I'll always remember because it was my eighteenth birthday, the day I became eligible for the draft.

Cinco de Mayo

Contrary to what many Americans think, Cinco de Mayo is not Mexican Independence Day.  That's September 16. 1810.  Cinco de Mayo commemorates the victory of Mexican forces against a far superior French invasion force on May 5, 1862 at Puebla.  Obviously, these photos weren't taken during the French occupation of Mexico, but they were very likely taken sometime during the Mexican Civil War that lasted, more or less, from 1910 to 1920.  It looks like the building in the second photo really took a beating.  And just for the record, in 1916 Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa  attacked Columbus, New Mexico when he was sold defective ammunition by American arms dealers, so maybe this photo was taken in New Mexico, rather than old Mexico.

FEAF

Believe it or not, when I found this small collection of photos, it was the sign that I wanted.

When I look through my collection of old photos, I'm well aware that the majority of people I see are dead; and I'm never more aware of that fact then when I'm looking at pictures from the World War 2 era.  It's not just the age of the photos, although that is a large part of it.  My father was a veteran, he was born in 1919, and if he were still alive, he would be turning 96 on February 4.  Even those who joined the military at 18, in 1945, are now in their late eighties.   It's the sheer carnage of a war, that killed so many young men, women, and huge numbers of civilians that reminds me of death.  It's fair to say that every person in the United States either had a family member that didn't come back, or they new of a family that suffered a lose of some sort.  And let's be honest, we in the United States actually got off easy.

FEAF stands for Far East Air Force.  It was formed on November 16, 1941, when all Army Air Force units in the Philippines were placed under a single, unified command.   Less than a month latter, on December 8 (Dec 7 on the other side of the international date line.) the Japanese attacked.  To make a long story short, the FEAF was pretty much destroyed on the ground.  In the end, 14 B-17s and their crews, 49 out of 165 fighter pilots,  27 ground officers, and 16 wounded enlisted men were evacuated to Darwin, Australia where they were reorganized as the 5th Air Force.  Those who weren't killed in the initial fighting, and who weren't evacuated, ended up as infantry on Bataan.

I'm not sure anyone who has gone to war can be described as lucky, but the young men in these photos come close.  While the men of the FEAF were stationed in the Philippines,  they were trained in the United States.  The third picture in the column has a processors stamp on the back.  "McCOLLUM'S PHOTO SHOP, ALBANY, GA.  DEC 8 1941."   Who knows whether they survived the war, but they did miss the surprise attacks in the Pacific.

World War 1, On The Move

More from the camera of O.D. Caldwell.

Both of the Caldwell posts seem to be about movement.  Most of the battle damage photos look like they were taken from a moving train, and they were all of different locations.  Today's post show men in trains and men on ships.  But, are they on the way to war, or are they on the way home?  I prefer to think that the war was over for these men, and they were headed back to the U.S.  That's why I put the Statue of Liberty picture last.

71 Years Ago Today, Pearl Harbor

All I know about these photos is that they were taken in Hawaii in 1942.  I've written about this before, and it's time to bring it up again.  My father believed that the great depression and World War 2 were good for the average American.  Not the New Deal or the money of a booming war economy, but how the disruption of those two great catastrophes forced Americans to move from their small towns or the old neighborhood, to go out and mix with people not like them, to go out into a greater world.  I doubt the men in these photos would have ever seen Hawaii if it hadn't been for the war.  Many would loose their lives, and that doesn't make for the better life that my father talked about, but for those who survived....it's one of those things that's impossible to prove, but I tend to agree with my father.  

Now, to move on to a bit about Pearl Harbor.  This week, I had a rather one sided discussion with a couple of young men about Pearl Harbor.  One sided because I felt that what I was hearing was so irrational that it was pointless to reply.  And yes, what they told me is something that many Americans believe.  It was that old saw of the Franklin Roosevelt conspiracy to get America into World War 2.  Once again I had someone tell me that FDR new all about the coming attack and let it happen so that he could get a reluctant America into a pointless war for personal gain.  In the past I used to point out that a failed attack by the Japanese would have been just as effective in getting us into the war.  That if Roosevelt knew in advance, surely we would have set a trap for the Japanese fleet.  In the end though, I got tired of people telling me that I was an idiot.  Didn't I know that FDR and his friends made more money rebuilding the fleet?  That's why he wanted all of our ships sunk.  So he could get rich.  Sadly, that's not the stupidest thing I've heard from one of my fellow citizens about the war.  That honor goes to the young man who told me that we and our German allies beat the Russians and the Japanese.  When I tried to tell him who were actually our allies and which countries were our enemies,  I was told that that was my opinion, and that no person's opinion was any more right than any other person's opinion.  And this is what we fought for.